Home>News>Torus Working with Kirona to Deliver Dynamic Resource Scheduling for Repairs and Maintenance Service

Torus Working with Kirona to Deliver Dynamic Resource Scheduling for Repairs and Maintenance Service

11th June 2018

By Laraine Geddes

North-West of England housing provider Torus is working with field service management specialist Kirona to deliver a transformative dynamic resource scheduling and project planner solution for its repairs and maintenance service, mobilising operatives and improving Voids management.

Torus was formed in April 2015 following a partnership between St Helens-based Helena Partnerships and Warrington-based Golden Gates Housing Trust (GGHT). As a result of coming together to form a larger group, Torus undertook a large transformation programme to become one cohesive organisation. As part of its Fit for the Future programme, the provider identified 27 legacy IT solutions that needed to be tendered and reconfigured to become seven central systems.

While GGHT was using different scheduling software, Helena Partnerships was an existing user of Kirona’s Dynamic Resource Scheduler (DRS) within its responsive repairs and maintenance team, carrying out gas and electrical servicing and responsive repairs. Given the previous experience and proven results, Torus chose to retain DRS to fit the needs of the newly formed company.

Torus went live with DRS in January 2018 for 150 operatives across gas and electric servicing, repairs and maintenance. They are now able to combine planned and appointed work and assign appropriate operatives to minimise downtime and increase productivity. In addition to this, Torus also chose to roll out remote mobile workstreams using Kirona’s DRS Project Planner module to support Voids management.

Project Planner complements Kirona’s workflow management software by handling the complexity of Voids. It does so by segmenting larger projects with multiple jobs into individual elements to create a plan for all visits required for that property. That plan is then allocated to appropriate operatives through DRS to ensure completion dates are met.

Lisa Candland, Group Head of IHC Operations at Torus said: “While we are in the early stages of implementation, we are already seeing the benefits of DRS and where we can make efficiencies in the future. We can see the value and improvements that could be made by reallocating operatives where needed and ensuring jobs are completed on time and within budget. We’ve been able to introduce a standard approach for all operatives, to allow flexibility for operatives to move teams as needed and utilise resource more effectively.

“Our IT transformation strategy was ambitious and we needed to move over 5,000 jobs from the legacy system to DRS. Our IT team worked closely with Kirona to transfer data seamlessly and remove the need for manual intervention. We were able to go live with a big bang and so far our experience working with them has been positive.”

Torus owns and manages more than 22,000 homes in the heart of the North West, predominantly across Warrington and St Helens. It has around 850 staff members delivering services to 44,000 customers. The annual group turnover exceeds £100million.